Sapphire HD 7870 FleX Dual-X 2GB Review

Conclusion:

Overall the card performed pretty well. For me the FleX feature really sells the card; I've been through the pain of buying active adapters and having to wait after just getting new hardware because I can't use with my Eyefinity setup – I mean why have something you can't use? However, performance is just as important if not more important. I liked the Dual BIOS for a quick OC, but I really never understood the point. It's nice to have two if you are like me and like playing with settings as you always have one you can switch back to that you know works for sure; but if I'm guaranteed the 1050MHz OC, why would I run the other BIOS from factory? I don't know; it's a feature that has been around for some time now and I've never really understood it.

I was impressed by the ability to overclock the core like crazy. Going from 1000MHz to 1240MHz was a nice surprise; the memory on the other hand was finicky, but isn't it always? It competed nicely with the GTX 580 and surpassed the 6970 without too much of a struggle. It's essentially the replacement to the 6970 and with the GTX 580 being a somewhat "dead" card to the market this is the "new" thing. The price is a bit high and for a little more coin I think I'd go for GTX 670 over this card any day. The GTX 670 trumps all, for the most part, and for the $45 price difference it's more than worth it. This would truly be a heck of a card if the price were quite a bit lower.

Pros:

Competes well on the performance side against last-generation flagships

Temperature and Power Consumption are low

FleX edition allows for any combination of display outputs without active adapters

Cons:

Price is a bit too high for the performance it offers in today's market